Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in: ARCHOS, the now-infamous king of cheap Android tablets, has just announced a whole new line of low-end ICS slates - aka "ELEMENTS." Though the line will eventually feature 7", 8", and 9.7" devices, today's announcement was limited to the ARCHOS 97 Carbon, which (as its name suggests) is of the 9.7" variety.

Before you get too excited, though, check out the rather extremely lackluster spec list:

Owners of ASUS' original Eee Pad Transformer have something to be excited about, as the update to software version 9.2.1.27 began rolling out earlier today.

While the update isn't too exciting (keeping the device at Android 4.0.3), it does bring a handful of fixes that TF101 users have been waiting for for some time. Among them are fixes for video playback, Chrome performance, and various app performance issues. Unofficial user reports indicate that the update may also bring smoother performance overall.

While the world waits for Google's own $200 7" tablet to be announced at Google I/O, CNET is reporting that Amazon may be ready to announce a successor to the wildly popular Kindle Fire this summer. The tech blog reports that Amazon may be preparing for a July 31st launch event to announce the next Kindle-branded tablet.

CNET's sources also point to a built-in camera and physical volume controls among the additions.

Google I/O is coming and we already expect a bevy of Android related announcements. Furthermore, rumours of a Google-branded Android tablet have been swirling around for some time now, and last month a benchmark report indicated that the 7-inch tablet would be manufactured by Asus.

According to a leaked internal training document, recently uncovered by Gizmodo Australia, the Google tablet will indeed be manufactured by Asus and will feature the following specs:

7-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280x800 and a 178-degree viewing angle

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

1.3Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor

nVidia GeForce 12-core GPU

1GB of RAM

8GB or 16GB of internal storage

1.2 MP front-facing camera, no rear camera

NFC with Google Wallet

Android Beam

Battery life estimated at 9 hours

Aside from the specs, which are quite impressive, there are two pieces of news that are especially interesting.

Fun fact: a 1080p display packs 2,073,600 pixels. The Asus Transformer Pad Infinity (or TF700)? 2,304,000 - or 230,400 more. Most 1080p HDTVs are somewhere around 40-60 inches. The TF700 checks in at just 10. Compared to a 40" HDTV, that's 111% of the pixels in a package that's 6.25% of the size.

The screen may be the real headline feature with the Infinity, but it's not the only one worthy of note.

If you read this site, there's a good chance that you consider yourself a geek on one level or another. If you're also a parent, you undoubtedly want to share your geekdom with your children. Sometimes this means sharing your digital devices with the little one(s), which is something that I don't normally condone (it's just a disaster waiting to happen, in my opinion). But what if you could give your children a tablet of their own?

There's little denying that Apple rules the smartphone world. The company sells just one phone model, yet that sole model constitutes 8.8% - or roughly 1 in 11 - of all worldwide smartphone sales and 73% of profits. iOS is the second most popular smartphone OS in the US after Android with 31.4% of the market (Android has 50.8%). Windows Phone 7, on the other hand, has just 4% of the US smartphone market, yet it's Microsoft that we have to worry about.